Fade to Black by Metallica

Short excerpt from Fade to Black by Metallica.  I thought I played pretty well considering I had bandages on both index fingers :P

Pillars of Creation by Keith Merrow

Abridged cover of "Pillars of Creation" by Keith Merrow.  Not quite up to my usual standards of clean playing, but it's a hard song  :)

Another video - "Battery" by Metallica

Me playing all four parts to an excerpt from Metallica's "Battery".  It took forever to sync up, so you all better appreciate it! ;)

Videos made with Windows Movie Maker, Microsoft Expression Encoder, and Audacity.

First recording attempts

          Practice makes perfect, huh?   Well, I'm getting my practice making "music videos" now, and they turned out half decent, so here it is folks:

Crate GT212 pawn shop find

Side by side with a Fender Mustang I

          Pawn shops are pretty hit-and-miss with guitar stuff.  It seems like usually the people selling the guitars have no idea what they are really worth, and then proceed to sell heavily used guitars at full price to people who don't know better.

          Today was a lucky find though - a Crate GT212 solid-state amp.  On its own it isn't really special; it's a pretty good 2 x 12" amp combo with three channels and an open back.

          The price tag read $110 - this was in rather rough shape, with dirt, dust, and cobwebs in it and a rend in the leather on the side.  That seemed an okay deal, since the price of two 12" speakers alone would almost definitely be more than that.  I left for a few hours.

          Later in the day I went back and got it for $80.  Now that's more like it!

Build:
          Heavy.  Like 50 lbs.  The sides are plywood slabs like 1/2" thick, so it's rugged for sure.  The leather-esque covering was a little thin but good enough.  Knobs were all there, if a bit dusty, everything in good working order and built to last.  Only issue was the ground lead broke off.  This is a bit concerning, and I'll see if I can get that fixed.


Sound:
          It is a solid-state amp, but doesn't sound like it in any bad way.  Clean channel sounds pretty good, though very bass heavy.  Rhythm channel is great for pretty much all genres of rock, with a good range of flexibility built in.  Solo channel is just the rhythm channel with a boost to gain and further tone sculpting.

           Honestly, I haven't had it long enough to do a comprehensive tone comparison and get a feel for how much I like it, but so far so good - the twin 12" speakers give a much wider tone range than the 8" on the Mustang - the low frequencies are a difference you feel, rather than hear :)

Volume:
          One very important thing - volume.  The most shocking aspect of this amp is the sheer power of the sound it puts out.  I knew 120 watts through 2 12" speakers was going to be a lot of power. I could not have expected the amount of power I got.

On volume 1 it is fairly quiet and good for practice - all but the absolute lowest volume with low gain is still too much to play without waking the family.

Volume 2 is quite a bit louder, good for rehearsal or seriously loud practice.

Volume 3 can compete with a reasonable drummer, and is plenty for a solo performance in a medium-small venue.

Volume 4 can take on most drummers and is all you would need for most performances.

Volume 5 is plenty for all but the loudest, most obnoxious punk bands performing at very large venues.

Volume 6... no, we don't go to volume 6.

Volume 7... it's like the Fight Club.  Don't talk about it.

Volume 8... Even thinking about it is liable to damage your hearing.

Volume 11 - approved by Nigel Tufnel himself.


Now, it may seem strange that I focused so much on volume, but again, I haven't had it long enough to really gauge tone and sound quality.  It can be reasonably assumed that tone gets worse when volume is raised above 5 or 6, the sweet spot seems to be 2-4.  If you really need it louder than 5 you use a PA system if you ask me :)


Anyway, I'll have a full writeup done sometime in the future, but for now I'll keep playing with my new toy!

Thoughts?  Anyone else had much luck in pawn shops before, guitars, amps, or otherwise?

School Club Band Constitution

Page 1 of 3

          This is a copy of the constitution I wrote for a rock band club that I started at my school.  If you are awesome enough to do something similar, feel free to use this as a template, the club was approved immediately!

          Even if your club isn't a band, this could still be useful; the template was also used as a base for another successful club in my school.

          On a side note, if your school's name starts with an "F", you are now required to start an "improvistaional rock ensemble".  Just because the acronym would be "F.I.R.E." and that's too cool to pass up ;)


Rest of the constitution after the break.

Warmoth Custom Guitars

          In case you haven't heard of it before, here is a link to Warmoth custom guitars

http://www.warmoth.com/

           I had heard of them but never really looked into it - I decided to change that.  The coolest thing about Warmoth is that not only can you build almost any guitar, it also has a visual example and pricing for every part you could possibly need.

Rogue Rocketeer Review

          When I saw the Rocketeer by Rogue on sale as the "Stupid Deal of the Day" at Musician's Friend, I knew I just had to have it.  Seriously, a full size electric guitar for $60.  It couldn't be that bad, right?

Aroma AMT-530 Tuner/Metronome Review

          Staying in tune is important to sounding good - fortunately, there are a plethora of tuners out there to help with that.  One of these is by Aroma and additionally has a metronome to keep time.

          Build quality - overall pretty good.  It's almost entirely plastic, but sturdy and the rubber grip is good quality.  For 10 bucks its plenty good durability wise.

          Usability - This is one area the Aroma AMT-530 doesn't do so hot in.  Mainly, it tries to do too much in too small a package and is pretty damn complicated.  Usually you can guess well enough to get it to what you want, and just using it as a chromatic tuner is simple enough for me.

          Other - Battery life is surprisingly good, as my brother takes it from time to time and it hasn't shown any signs of running down after around 2 years of running.  Tuning accuracy seems good too, as it's within a few cents of the tuner built into my Mustang amp and does the job well.

Overall I give it a 4 out of 5 stars because it's good for the price, if a bit difficult to use.

Printable Graphing Paper Sheet

So maybe it's not about guitars.  Not even a little.  But someone will find this on Google Images and it will help their life, so it's going up.  Because I do what I want.

Printable Graphing Paper Sheet

More Great Backing Tracks

Some more good tracks for you to jam out on, all conveniently in one place.

Five more after the break.

Learn the Modes Fast and Easy (With Tabs)